Education doesn’t prepare you for the real world. At least, it didn’t prepare me. I was two weeks into my job at an intelligence agency on September 11, 2001 when the world suddenly changed. The job I had been hired to do was no longer the one that was needed. I had a computer science degree; I came from a world of 1s and 0s, not people, families, and interpersonal dynamics. I was thrust into a series of promotions for which I had received no guidance, that came with responsibilities I had no idea how to navigate. Now I found that my decisions affected not only my employees but their families. Not only my country, but other countries. The only problem? I had no idea how to make decisions. I only knew I had an obligation to make the best decisions I could.
教育無法讓你為真實世界做好準備。至少，它當時並未讓我做好準備。2001年9月11日，我在一家情報機構任職僅兩週，世界便驟然改變。我當初受僱要承擔的工作，已不再是當下所需。我持有電腦科學學位，過去所處的世界充斥著「0」與「1」，而非人際互動、家庭關係與人際動態。後來我接連獲得升遷，卻未得到任何指導；面對伴隨升遷而來的種種職責，我完全不知該如何應對。此時我才發現，我的決策不僅影響下屬，更影響他們的家庭；不僅關係本國，更牽涉其他國家。但唯一的問題在於：我根本不知道該如何做決策，只明白自己有義務盡全力做出最佳決策。
To improve my ability to make decisions, I looked around and found some mentors. I watched them carefully and learned from them. I read everything I could about making decisions. I even took some time off work to go back to school and earn my MBA, hoping that I would finally learn how to make better decisions, as if that was some end state rather than a constantly evolving journey.
為提升決策能力，我四處尋覓，找到了幾位導師。我仔細觀察他們的言行，並從中取經。凡是與決策相關的書籍，我無一不讀。我甚至暫時停職重返校園，攻讀工商管理碩士（MBA）學位，期盼能最終學會如何做出更優質的決策——當時的我以為，這是一個能達到的終點，而非一段持續演進的旅程。
My belief that the MBA program was a good use of my time was eroded fairly quickly. When I showed up to write an exam only to find out it was an open book test, I realized my expectations were entirely wrong and in need of updating. Was I in a master’s program or grade school? Some days, I couldn’t tell. And yet that is where everything changed for me.
然而，「攻讀MBA是合理的時間投入」這一想法，很快就動搖了。有一次我去參加考試，卻發現那是開卷考試——此時我才意識到，自己的預期完全錯誤，必須加以調整。我究竟是在讀碩士課程，還是在念小學？有好幾天，我都無法分辨。但也正是在這個過程中，我的人生迎來了轉折。
I realized that I couldn’t fail as long as I knew where the answers were in the books I could bring to the exams. This was actually quite liberating. I stopped putting effort into my assignments and started learning about someone who was casually mentioned in class. That person was Charlie Munger. I went from theoretical examples that were completely divorced from the real world, to the wisdom behind the achievements of one of the most successful businessmen of all time. Munger, who you will come to know in these volumes, is the billionaire business partner of Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway. He’s easy to like: intelligent, witty, and irreverent. Finding Munger opened the door to unexpected intellectual pleasure. I felt like I had finally found knowledge that was useful because it was gained from someone’s real effort to better understand how the world works. It was so much more satisfying to learn from someone who had tried to put many theories into practice and was willing to share his results. The fact that Munger was so professionally successful made it all the more compelling.
我意識到，只要知道參考書中答案的位置，考試就不會不及格。這一認知反倒讓我感到解脫。從此，我不再在課程作業上費心，而是開始主動了解課堂上被偶然提及的一個人——查爾斯·芒格（Charlie Munger）。從此，我脫離了那些與現實世界完全脫軌的理論案例，開始領略這位史上最成功企業家之一背後的智慧。在本系列書籍中，你將深入認識芒格：他是伯克希爾·哈撒韋公司（Berkshire Hathaway）的億萬富翁合夥人，也是沃倫·巴菲特（Warren Buffett）的事業夥伴。他聰慧機智、不墨守成規，很容易讓人產生好感。認識芒格，為我開啟了意想不到的知識樂趣之門。我終於找到有用的知識——這些知識源自他人為深入理解世界運行規律所付出的真實努力。向一位嘗試將眾多理論付諸實踐，並願意分享成果的人學習，帶來的滿足感遠超以往。而芒格在職業生涯中的巨大成功，更讓他的智慧顯得具說服力。
Munger has a way of thinking through problems using what he calls a broad latticework of mental models. These are chunks of knowledge from different disciplines that can be simplified and applied to better understand the world. The way he describes it, they help identify what information is relevant in any given situation, and the most reasonable parameters to work in. His track record shows that this doesn’t just make sense in theory but is devastatingly useful in practice. I started writing about my learnings, the result being the website fs.blog. The last eight years of my life have been devoted to identifying and learning the mental models that have the greatest positive impact, and trying to understand how we think, how we update, how we learn, and how we can make better decisions.
芒格有一種獨特的思考問題的方式：運用他所謂的「廣博思維模型網絡」（broad latticework of mental models）。這些思維模型是來自不同學科的知識模塊，經過簡化後可應用於實踐，幫助人們更好地理解世界。用他的話來說，這些模型能協助人們在特定情境中辨別哪些資訊相關，並確定最合理的行動範圍。他的履歷表明，這種思考方式不僅在理論上成立，在實踐中更具極高的實用價值。於是，我開始記錄自己的學習心得，最終創建了網站fs.blog。過去八年，我傾注全力辨識並學習那些能帶來最大正向影響的思維模型，同時努力探究人類如何思考、如何更新認知、如何學習，以及如何做出更優決策。
I joke with my kids that if you want to suck up someone’s brain, you should simply read a book. All the great wisdom of humanity is written down somewhere. When we were talking about mental models one day the kids asked if we had the mental models book. This made me pause, and I was struck with the realization that such a book didn’t exist. I didn’t have something I could share with my kids, and that was a problem. A very solvable problem.
我常和孩子們開玩笑說，若想「汲取他人的智慧」，只要讀一本書就夠了——人類所有的偉大智慧，都以文字形式記載在某個地方。有一天，我們談起思維模型時，孩子們問我：「有關於思維模型的書嗎？」這個問題讓我頓時停住，並猛然意識到：市面上並不存在這樣的書。我沒有一份能與孩子們分享的知識材料，這成了一個問題——但它是一個完全可以解決的問題。
This book, and the volumes which will follow, are the books I wish had existed years ago when I started learning about mental models. These are my homage to the idea that we can benefit from understanding how the world works and applying that understanding to keep us out of trouble.
本書及後續系列叢書，正是我多年前開始學習思維模型時，渴望能存在的書籍。我希望通過這些書籍表達一份敬意：深入理解世界的運行規律，並將這種理解用於規避風險、遠離麻煩，必能讓我們受益匪淺。
The ideas in these volumes are not my own, nor do I deserve any credit for them. They come from the likes of Charlie Munger, Nassim Taleb, Charles Darwin, Peter Kaufman, Peter Bevelin, Richard Feynman, Albert Einstein, and so many others. As the Roman poet Publius Terentius wrote: “Nothing has yet been said that’s not been said before.” I’ve only curated, edited, and shaped the work of others before me.
本系列書籍中的觀點並非我原創，我也不配為此邀功。這些思想源自查爾斯·芒格、納西姆·塔勒布（Nassim Taleb）、查爾斯·達爾文（Charles Darwin）、彼得·考夫曼（Peter Kaufman）、彼得·貝弗林（Peter Bevelin）、理查德·費曼（Richard Feynman）、阿爾伯特·愛因斯坦（Albert Einstein）等眾多先賢。正如古羅馬詩人普布利烏斯·泰倫提烏斯（Publius Terentius）所言：「世間無新語，皆為舊事重提。」我所做的，僅是篩選、編輯並整合前輩們的智慧成果。
The timeless, broad ideas in these volumes are for my children and their children and their children’s children. In creating them, I hope to allow others to approach problems with clarity and confidence, helping to make their journey through life more successful and rewarding.
本系列書籍中那些永恆而廣博的思想，是獻給我的子女、孫輩乃至曾孫輩的禮物。我希望通過創作這些書籍，讓更多人能以清晰的思路與堅定的信心面對問題，幫助他們的人生旅程更為順利、更具意義。
« You only think you know, as a matter of fact. And most of your actions are based on incomplete knowledge and you really don’t know what it is all about, or what the purpose of the world is, or know a great deal of other things. It is possible to live and not know. » Richard Feynman¹
「事實上，你以為自己知道，其實並非如此。你的大多數行動，都基於不完整的知識；你根本不明白事物的全貌，不清楚世界的意義，也不了解許多其他重要的事。即便一無所知，人依然可以活下去。」
理查德·費曼
「我篤信一條準則：盡力掌握他人已探明的最佳智慧。」
查爾斯·芒格
